Starmer visits ‘harrowing’ Auschwitz and vows renewed fight against antisemitism
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Sir Keir Starmer has visited Auschwitz, a place he described as “utterly harrowing”, and said he was determined to fight the “poison of antisemitism”. The Prime Minister visited the former Nazi concentration camp as he travelled to Poland to meet with the country’s political leaders.
Speaking following his time at the camp, Sir Keir said: “Nothing could prepare me for the sheer horror of what I have seen in this place. It is utterly harrowing. The mounds of hair, the shoes, the suitcases, the names and details, everything that was so meticulously kept, except for human life.
“As I stood by the train tracks at Birkenau, looking across that cold, vast expanse, I felt a sickness, an air of desolation, as I tried to comprehend the enormity of this barbarous, planned, industrialised murder: a million people killed here for one reason, simply because they were Jewish.”.
His wife Victoria, who is Jewish, joined him for the visit and was “equally moved”, Sir Keir said. He added: “It was her second visit, but no less harrowing than the first time she stepped through that gate and witnessed the depravity of what happened here.”.
The Prime Minister warned of the rising threat of antisemitism in recent years, including at home in the UK. He added: “The truth that I have seen here today will stay with me for the rest of my life. “So too, will my determination to defend that truth, to fight the poison of antisemitism and hatred in all its forms, and to do everything I can to make ‘never again’ mean what it says, and what it must truly mean: never again.”.
